


Would you like to dance?

by NiciLupin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, fragmented, non-linear timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21960823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiciLupin/pseuds/NiciLupin
Summary: In which Albus and Gellert survive the war and make the headlines for something as mundane as dancing...
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56
Collections: Grindeldore Holiday Exchange 2019





	Would you like to dance?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emeraldtree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldtree/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy this little piece, I certainly had fun writing it!

The next day they adorned the front page of the Daily Prophet. And the Quibbler. And the Charmed Mirror. The Magic Broadcast talked about them on the morning show and during lunchtime magazine, and there was a steady stream of postmen besieging Bathilda's old house in Godric's Hollow.

In fact, Gellert had expected something like this, but he couldn’t have cared less. He had made the headlines many times in his life and far worse - this amused him at best.

*

When the door to his dark lonely cell in Nurmengard's highest tower opened surprisingly after a whole lifetime spent there, he had first thought of a dream. Or that he was finally going mad, now; that his own actions had finally driven him mad.

He looked up from under his thin blanket and saw the figure of a grand black wizard, who addressed him in a deep, reassuring voice: "Mr Grindelwald? It is time to go."

Then a stocky man with a magic eye and a stump instead of a foot limped in, followed by a young woman with short hair so pink it almost blinded him.

"Go where?” He had asked, although he was still not sure that he was not hallucinating after all.

"To a more comfortable place, definitely," the young woman had replied, looking around the cell doubtfully.

He hadn't exactly cooperated, but his body was practically skin and bones and his magic had been rusted for a while. Besides, he hadn't eaten for days and felt so dizzy that he almost didn't care where they took him.

The rest was history. They had taken him to central London to a hidden magical house, Grimmauld Place Number 12, where Albus was already waiting for him. His senses had been so overwhelmed by the sudden stimuli that came over him - the sounds of the big city, the feeling of rain on his skin, the smell of freshly cooked food - but he would have recognized Albus' eyes among thousands.

*

_Gellert didn't pay much attention to appearances. He knew that he himself was exceptionally beautiful and how to use that to his advantage, but he seldom cared about the looks of others. He found some boys and girls attractive, but as soon as they opened their mouths, this impression faded and their faces blurred into an insignificant mask._

_When his aunt introduced him to Albus, this tall, thin boy with long hair that shimmered in the sun like dark blood, his eyes first caught his eye. They were light blue like crystals and clear and alert, and when he began to speak - lecturing him at once, in a benevolent manner, which more polite people than himself adopted, if they were used to being surrounded by idiots, that it was by no means possible to turn his pathetic attempt at a soup into tasty roasts - they glittered with suppressed passion._

_They became friends faster than any of them could have said 'Hallows' and Gellert knew that it was special; that Albus was special._

_It was so simple. Talking to Albus was easy because he understood, laughing with him was easy because he never seemed to lose his sense of humour; planning with him was easy because Albus was brilliant. It was plain great and he was sure that Albus was the best thing that would ever happen to him in his life._

*

He'd reckoned that Voldemort, this simple-minded boy, would one day start looking for the wand and consequently would one day track Gellert down. He had reckoned that this would be his end, that his only good deed, the only sign of remorse, would be that he would tell Voldemort absolutely nothing.

He hadn't expected Albus to beat him to it - maybe he hadn't expected Albus to care enough about him to bother saving him, but he found himself in a war against his will - this time on the other side.

Nobody seemed to be really excited about it, not even Albus himself, but the members of his Order obviously had enough respect for him - or enough trust, or maybe he just had them well under control - to give Gellert clothes, tolerate him at the dining table and even help him fix his teeth and hair a bit.

In the beginning he hadn't seen Albus much. He had been informed that he would remain in the care of the Order for his own safety and for the protection of the rest of the world, without really knowing what it was all about.

The members of the order were coming and going and seemed increasingly tense and worried. The dinners became more silent, Molly Weasley, the best cook he had ever met, started to cry a few times and quite often the discussions became quite heated after a few glasses of wine.

Finally, at Christmas, Albus came along too, at least for longer than the half hour it took to exchange the most important information.

"I have something for you," he had said and sat down next to Albus on the sofa in the Blacks' dark living room. Albus had looked up from his eggnog in surprise and accepted the poorly wrapped gift.

"Thank you." Albus had long examined the gift and turned it in his hands as if it could break or explode.

"Don't worry, I didn't jinx it." Gellert had folded his hands in his lap and tried to suppress the trembling, which he hadn't been able to get rid of since Nurmengard.

"I didn't think so." Albus had given him a faint smile and finally carefully removed the packing paper. A pair of thick red wool socks appeared.

"Where did you get those?"

"I made them myself. I don't have much to do here and knitting is good exercise for my hands."

"Thank you," Albus had mumbled again and gently stroked over the irregular flaps in his socks.

*

_"But you're not like everybody else, and now stop it - we both know that you know that very well yourself." Gellert turned energetically on the meadow and looked Albus in the face, who grinned crookedly._

_"What are we doing here, Gellert?", he asked instead of responding to their previous discussion._

_Then he had grabbed Albus' hand and had run off, and Albus had run with him, no more questions, no more suspicion, he had just followed him - as usual. They had run down the small hill and only stopped at the lakeside between the long branches of the willows. Albus was now quite out of breath, red spots had formed on his face and sweat on his hand, which Gellert was still holding._

_"You could’ve given me a warning," Albus beathed out, smiling despite himself._

_"You came with me," Gellert replied._

_Albus shook his head and Gellert moved even closer to him, so close that he could feel Albus' breath on his face and his fingers closing around his braces._

_"One day," he said softly as he put his arms around Albus' shoulders and stroked his neck. "I'll just start running and we'll run away together." Albus laughed breathlessly and leaned his forehead against his. "That would be nice."_

*

When the end of the war was imminent, Albus had given him a wand. For his own protection, he had said. It had been incredible to finally feel the full power of his magic again, not just the buds of wandless magic that remained. He loved the feeling of wielding a wand, letting its power play; it was intoxicating, even despite the fact that the wand obviously didn't like him very much.

After Voldemort's death, the Ministry, which first had to reorganize itself and therefore preferred to do a sweep, had temporarily transferred him to Azkaban with the other Death Eaters.

If one was to believe the stories in the newspapers and the members of the Order, Albus had been furious about this and thus he had fortunately not stayed longer than 8 days in this terrible place. Nevertheless, in those few days the dementors had managed to rob him of almost all the will to live that he had regained in the past few months. The screams of the dead and tormented in his head just wouldn't go away, again and again a young girl appeared dead on the ground in front of him; he saw crying mothers and fathers, he heard the hatred in his head. He felt the crushing guilt, remorse that could never bring redemption, that could never make up for it.

Albus himself picked him up, kneeled down on the dirty floor of the cell and pulled him into his arms with surprising strength. He clung to Albus, the only source of warmth in 8 long days, shaking and burying his face on his shoulder to hide the tears.

"Albus," he murmured. "Albus, I'm sorry. I regret - I regret everything - I'm so sorry."

"I know." Albus squeezed him briefly, transformed his thin dirty robe into a warm travel cloak and finally pulled him to his feet.

Albus brought him to Godric's Hollow, his aunt's old house, which had stood empty since her death. It was the only house he had ever felt at home in and the feeling warmed his insides, despite the dust that had accumulated in the house by now. It was the most beautiful place he could imagine.

Albus put him to bed like a little boy - still the same bed as 100 years ago - and Gellert held his hand.

"You know what I regret most?"

Albus stroked the back of his hand but said nothing.

"A hundred times I love you, that I never told you."

He thought he could see Albus' mouth curling into a smile, but when he looked at him, his eyes were glassy and a tear disappeared from his cheek in his beard.

*

A year later, on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, the Weasleys held a great celebration at the Burrow. Albus had taken him along, although he had not been very keen and the other guests obviously did not feel very comfortable in his company either.

Throughout the afternoon he had not moved from his seat, sitting by Albus' side and eating two pieces of Mrs Weasley's excellent chocolate cream cake. Conversation he had only had with Albus when he was not occupied by someone else, but that was only right. He liked to watch people, to see how society had changed, what new inventions there were - even Mr Weasley, who had a fool's fancy for Muggle inventions to tinker with. 

He enjoyed the feeling of the sun and light wind on his skin, the smell of freshly cut grass and ripe fruit and flowers, the buzzing of bees and the colour of the sky. He spent his life in freedom again for quite a while now, yet every day he found something new that fascinated him about the world, something he’d missed in Nurmengard and thought he would never experience egain.

When the sun was already low in the sky and a giant, gruff looking man, whom Albus addressed with 'Hagrid', had finally left Albus to talk to one of the Weasley sons, loud music began to play from an enchanted Muggle record player at the other end of the garden. Gellert flinched at first and pulled a face. Two girls - the youngest of the Weasley clan and one with light blonde hair and large coloured earrings - waved their wands and cheerfully changed the songs and volume until Mr Weasley finally chased them away and the player changed the records magically. Gellert was forced to realize that music, too, had changed over the last 50 years.

Suddenly, Albus leaned in and asked, "Would you like to dance?"

Gellert raised one eyebrow. Albus visited him regularly in Godric's Hollow, Gellert was almost certain that he even spent most of his free time with him, but then again, the reporters had to stay away from there. The ministry had decided that at least in that village they weren't allowed to besiege him - mainly for security reasons as Gellert suspected, but actually he didn't care either. He only cared that they left him alone.

He had not expected such a request. "I don't think I know how to dance anymore." Albus smiled, took his hand and stood up. Gellert followed him, as did the looks of the other guests. "Do you know these songs?”, he asked, when a particularly unrhythmic melody accompanied by a kind of speech-song sounded from the music box.

Albus chuckled happily and shook his head. "Not at all. But we can just dance to this." His hand twitched inconspicuously and the music jumped abruptly to "Demiguise my heart" - which had been playing up and down on the radio during their summer. Gellert grinned, surprised by a wave of nostalgia and put one hand on Albus' back.

The last time he had danced had been with Albus, too, but that seemed to have been in another life. They had been young and agile and had whirled each other through the crowded living room of the Dumbledores. Now they were moving less quickly and less excited and less close together, but Albus's hand, though softer and more delicate, still felt the same in his, and his smile that made his eyes sparkle had also remained the same.

Gellert didn't know who had told the press - none of Albus's friends seemed to qualify - but the next day all the newspapers had nothing better to do than discuss the meaning of this dance.

*

"You're doing great on the front page." 

Gellert sat in the small garden behind Bathilda's house, which had only been cleared of the roughest weeds, and grinned at Albus as he stepped through the small garden gate.

Albus' mouth distorted into a tortured smile. "Even better with you, I fear."

He beckoned another cup and saucer (floral, as Bathilda had liked it) and as Albus sat down opposite him, a pot hopped up and poured hot tea.

"Well, I was always the prettier one of the two of us," he said and took a biscuit. Albus laughed softly and Gellert grinned. 

“The students were beside themselves with joy at breakfast. I don't think I've been stared at so much since I wore that silver sequined cloak to the conference of the International confederation of Wizards."

He laughed out loud. "You really did that?" 

Albus shrugged his shoulders and put several spoons of sugar into the tea. A smile still lay on his lips. "Some reporters are waiting at the village border."

Gellert sighed and rolled his eyes. "I know. They haven't taken such an interest in me in a long time. They act as if they'd never seen two people dance before."

They changed the subject then. Albus told him about the school and that the ministry persistently tried to persuade him to accept the post of Minister of Magic after all. Apparently he had proposed one of the members of his Order, but the Ministry was still reluctant. They believed that he could regain the much-needed peace and confidence in the ministry, despite the fact that they often disliked his eccentricity and decisions. Gellert could only shake his head at so much ignorance, but Albus seemed increasingly irritated and tense because of it.

They talked about the new issue of _Transfiguration Today_ and Gellert's newfound enthusiasm for chess and the piano, while his bones were definitely no longer suitable for the sports he had enjoyed in his youth. Soon the afternoon sun gave way to dusk and finally the purple sky turned into a starry night.

When Albus finally rose to make his way back to Hogwarts, Gellert reached for his hand and looked into his eyes. "Stay here."

"Gellert, I don't think that -"

"I mean: sleep here - just sleep," he interrupted. "We can talk some more and - I haven't woken up beside you in a long time."

Albus stroked the back of his hand with his thumb and seemed to think twice. "I have to go back to school tomorrow."

"What? Are your teachers not allowed to leave the castle all year round? Tomorrow is Saturday, and you must have a substitute." He could literally see Albus' doubts crumble. "Stay here," he asked again.

So Albus had enchanted the narrow bed. In their youth, they had shared it, close together, but now their bones would not stand for it. The bed was now so wide that they didn't need to touch each other, but he turned to Albus' anyway, and when he was awakened by nightmares in the night, Albus intertwined their fingers and stroked his hair.

From then on, Albus regularly stayed overnight.

*

"What was the name of the village where you grew up?" He leaned back on his chair casually.

Albus looked at him in surprise. "Mould-on-the-Would. Why do you ask?"

"I remembered you talking about Southampton and how you wanted to go back there someday, but I couldn't remember the village."

Albus smiled weakly. "You remember that?"

"I remember almost everything. I had a long time to think about it."

"So why are you thinking about it now?"

"I don't think I want to stay here for the rest of my life, so I'll have to find something else." He leaned forward and closed his hands around his cup. "And I thought you might be interested in coming along."

Albus took a sip of his cocoa and took his sweet time with an answer. "I've got a home, you know, and when I talked about Mould-on-the-Would back then, everything was a bit - different."

"It doesn't have to be Mould-on-the-Would. We talked about so many places."

Albus looked into his eyes and he held his gaze resolutely. "What do you want to say, Gellert?"

Yeah, what did he want to say? He wasn't sure himself, he only knew that he wanted his peace and that he wanted Albus by his side. They had missed so much, they had done so much to hurt eachother and the world and he had enough of it. He didn't want to think about it anymore. He had thought about it for 50 years and it still haunted him in his dreams. He had tried to make amends, but it would never be enough, no matter what he tried - his only apology was that it would probably torture him for the rest of his life. But until then he wanted to do something of what he had dreamed of as a boy, at last. And if he couldn't give anything back to the world, then at least to Albus, who’d probably suffered the most at his hands.

"Albus, I know it all... never went as we planned. That was my fault and I'm sorry, more than sorry - and I'm grateful that you visit me so often. I just thought we could try and make up for some of it."

Albus lowered his eyes to his cup and seemed to think. "We're not 17 anymore, Gellert," he said softly.

"I don't care about that. Albus -" he sighed, took a deep breath and reached for his hand. It was still hard to talk about, he was not good at revealing himself. "In all my life I have only felt connected to someone once. I didn't care about all these people, even if I wanted freedom for them, they meant nothing to me, not personally. _You_ are the only one who ever meant anything to me. I always thought at that time that you'd come back to me one day, and later in Nurmengard I asked myself a thousand times why you didn't. I understand it now. I just hoped I could at least live now. I was hoping I could spend the rest of my life with you." When he looked into Albus' eyes, they glittered with tears again and his throat felt strangely tightened as well. "I know what I did to you. I know what kind of man I am and that I do not deserve your forgiveness at all, but I ask for it anyway. I can't help it."

Albus squeezed his hand and swallowed before he spoke. "Do you know why I fell in love with you then? Why you I couldn’t let you go all these years?"

"Because you were 17 and quite vulnerable?" It was a feeble attempt to banish the gloomy undertone of the conversation and the corner of Albus’ mouth twitched only briefly.

"That too. But, most of all, I ignored every single red flag because I saw something good in you. I saw only the good in you, whatever you said and did."

"There was nothing good, Albus. You just wanted to see it."

"No. I see it now. There’s something good. You're not like Lord Voldemort. You know love and regret. You've always had a serious plan for society. Even when you took a terribly wrong turn, you always thought you were doing the right thing - not just for yourself. And just like you, I have always believed in it, always hoped you would return to me one day. I've always hoped that I wasn't just imagining it. And I was right. It just took longer than I’d hoped.”

Now the tears actually found their way out of his eyes and Gellert felt that his cheeks were wet and his vision was blurred.

He wiped his face while his other hand still held Albus'. "Does that mean you're coming with me," he finally asked in fake-confidence, but the trembling in his voice proved him wrong.

Albus put his hands around his face and kissed him on the forehead. "I have to think about it."

"All right, but don't think all our conversations are gonna end in tears now." 

He laid his hands on Albus' and looked up at him. Albus shook his head. "Believe me, I have cried enough since we parted. Enough for my whole life."


End file.
